Written by: Lisa Longo – Animal Académie My name is Lisa Longo and I am an animal behaviour consultant for pet owners. I share my life with a Czechoslovakian wolfdog, a Gottingen pig, a blue and gold macaw and a red-lored amazon. My job is to bridge the gap between Read more…
Behaviour is something we can’t extinguish it is always there. We have an effect on behaviour all the time. Through associations and consequences in different environments our behaviour keeps on changing accordingly. Science explains that reinforcement will increase behaviour while punishment decreases behaviour. At Zoospensefull we are pro reinforcement techniques Read more…
Written by Nicki Boyd – Associate Curator of Behavioral Husbandry In 2017, the San Diego Zoo embarked on a new safety protocol with emergency recall for our open fronted habitats that had dangerous animals inside. We knew the tragedy that befell another North American Zoo, when a child climbed a Read more…
One of the first behaviours we suggest to train are call overs. For us, a call over is a behaviour that when a cue or signal is given the animal comes to the trainer. This behaviour has so many great applications to it; call overs help when counting animals in Read more…
Written By Susan G. Friedman, PH.D. Susan G. Friedman, Ph.D. is a professor emeritus in the Department of Psychology at Utah State University. Susan has co-authored chapters on behavior change in five veterinary texts, and her popular articles have been translated into 14 languages. She teaches a well-attended course on Read more…
Cover Photo: Namsskogan Familie Park How many of us look around an enclosure, at all of the animals and the potential distractions before starting a training session? During my years of observing training sessions I have seen many sessions that begin with the animal not being set up correctly to Read more…
When training animals for a variety of behaviours, we are constantly trying to decrease one behaviour over another. We tend to apply ‘differential reinforcement’ when animals exhibit unwanted responses and behaviours. If you dissect your training session, you will discover that you use one of the differential reinforcement techniques listed Read more…
When should we be predictable and when should we be unpredictable with our animals whether during training sessions or their daily care? As trainers we want our training sessions to be dynamic and interesting to help motivate the animal but when training our animals when should we switch between being Read more…
There are many ways to train a completely new behaviour. One of these techniques is capturing. Capturing is a technique where the animal spontaneously preforms the behaviour and we reinforce directly. We capture the behaviour by making it occur more often to then add a signal to it. Capturing is Read more…
When we think about the animals in our care, the enrichment we provide is an important part of their lives. We believe that both a healthy mind and a healthy body are needed for an organism to thrive and enrichment is a perfect way to tick a lot of behavioural Read more…